This has been edited xx Please tell me if there are any more issues xx Read and review!
Captain America had just given Tony another reason to loathe him. He hated people who couldn't realise. People who couldn't realise that Iron Man wasn't anything without Tony. That they weren't two separate people. They were the same. Iron Man was merely the physical embodiment of all of the things Tony was, the genius, the sarcasm, the heart kept tightly under lock and key.
Iron Man had shown Tony a way to express his feelings, to show them and no one could break a superhero. And Tony was Iron Man. And that meant they couldn't break him either.
With that realisation, his carefully constructed walls started to crumble.
And it hurt.
But he wouldn't break.
Pepper loved the idea of him expressing his feelings. It meant they were in a proper relationship, an equal one, a proper couple, not just his silent admiration from a safe distance and her silent adoration shown through her taking care of him. Pepper loved him. He loved her.
And maybe now, unlike before Afghanistan, he'd be able to say it.
Maybe one day they'd even settle down. But he didn't think either of them was suited to that life. Not yet.
Iron Man might be part of him but at the minute he was complicating his life.
It was a shame none of the others could see that Iron Man was him. They treated them like two separate entities, like Bruce and the Hulk. But it wasn't like that. Tony controlled Iron Man.
Take the suit away and he was still Iron Man.
Just a little less able to do good in the world.